Don Glaciation
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The Don Glaciation, also known as the Donian Glaciation and the Donian Stage, was the major glaciation of the
East European Plain The East European Plain (also called the Russian Plain, "Extending from eastern Poland through the entire European Russia to the Ural Mountaina, the ''East European Plain'' encompasses all of the Baltic states and Belarus, nearly all of Ukraine, a ...
, 0.5–0.8 million years ago, during the
Cromerian Stage The Cromerian Stage or Cromerian Complex, also called the Cromerian (german: Cromerium), is a stage in the Pleistocene glacial history of north-western Europe, mostly occurring more than half a million years ago. It is named after the East Anglian t ...
of the
Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. The ...
.Cambridge Quaternary Palaeoenvironments Group: Don Glaciation
/ref> It is correlated to Marine Isotope Stage 16 (MIS 16),Philip D. Hughes and Philip L. Gibbard: Global glacier dynamics during 100 ka Pleistocene glacial cycles, Quaternary research, Volume 90, Issue 1, pp 222-243.
/ref> approximately 650,000 years ago, which globally contained one of the largest glacial volumes of the
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
.N. Lang and E.W. Wolff (2011): Interglacial and glacial variability from the last 800 ka in marine, ice and terrestrial archives, Climate of the Past, 7, 361-380.
/ref>


Don Glaciation

The Don Glaciation shows evidence of the most extensive ice sheet on the
East European Plain The East European Plain (also called the Russian Plain, "Extending from eastern Poland through the entire European Russia to the Ural Mountaina, the ''East European Plain'' encompasses all of the Baltic states and Belarus, nearly all of Ukraine, a ...
, extending into the drainage basin of the middle and lower
Don River The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...
in Russia, reaching 50 degrees north latitude. This glaciation occurred before the Muchkap interglacial and the Oka and Dnieper glaciations of Eastern Europe.Böse et al. (2012), Quaternary Glaciations of Northern Europe, Quaternary Science Reviews 44, 1-25.
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Marine Isotope Stage 16

MIS 16 is a major glacial stage identified through measurements of oxygene isotopes in deep sea core samples (
marine isotope stage Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data reflecting changes in temperature derived from data ...
) of Cromerian age, approximately 676-621 ka ago. In terms of global ice volume, it ranks as one of the two most extreme glaciations of the
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
, on par with MIS 12. However, in terms of sea water temperatures it is a much more modest glaciation, of similar climate intensity to the neighbouring Cromerian glaciations MIS 14 and MIS 18. The atmospheric concentration of was below 180 ppm for 3 ka during MIS 16, the lowest of the last eight glacial cycles.


Correlations

Don and MIS 16 are usually correlated to each other. This is based on assumption that the most widespread evidence for glaciation in the Cromerian ought to be associated with the largest glaciation on the global scene. However, the time resolution of current age determinations is insufficient for a clear distinction between MIS 14, MIS 16 and MIS 18. It is unclear why the major glaciation of MIS 16 has left very little evidence in the geological records of Western Europe. MIS 16 is believed to correspond to
Pre-Illinoian The Pre-Illinoian Stage is used by Quaternary geologists for the early and middle Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods of geologic time in North America from ~2.5–0.2  Ma (million years ago). North America As the oldest stage in t ...
D in North America.J. Ehlers, P.L. Gibbard, P.D. Hughes: Quaternary Glaciations - Extent and Chronology: A Closer Look, Discussion of the dating of the age of glacial limits, pp 523-524.
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See also

*
Timeline of glaciation There have been five or six major ice ages in the history of Earth over the past 3 billion years. The Late Cenozoic Ice Age began 34 million years ago, its latest phase being the Quaternary glaciation, in progress since 2.58 million years ago. ...


References

{{Reflist Quaternary geochronology Ice ages Pleistocene Glaciology Paleoclimatology Geology of Europe